Israel’s Coup de Grace to Obama’s Efforts

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Hossein Talebi
Expert on European Issues

The United States of America has canceled a proposed meeting on the “Middle East Free from Nuclear, Chemical and Biological” weapons. According to news agencies, the spokeswoman of the United States Department of State, Victoria Nuland, said in a press conference on Friday, November 23, that the reason for the cancellation was the existing conditions in the region. Nuland also mentioned rejection of conditions set for the participation in the conference by some regional states as another reason for the cancellation of the event. She added, “We would not support a conference in which any regional state would be subject to pressure or isolation.”

The above remarks have once more clearly proven that the United States is sure that the only regime in the Middle East which enjoys Washington’s unbridled support has become totally isolated. The United States, as well as the other Western allies of Israel, are still supporting Tel Aviv in blatant defiance of all norms and rules of international law. The meeting on the Middle East free from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons would have nothing new to say because it is only Israel which possesses nuclear weapons, warheads and submarines in this region. In fact, the meeting under that title would have directly alluded to condemnation of Israel from the very beginning. The Americans canceled the meeting with this point on their minds. During recent days, the United States and its Western allies have proven that they do not take the Middle East peace process seriously and are merely trying to support the true nature of Israel. The main reasons which attest to this fact are listed below.

1. The recent eight-day war in Gaza was launched by Israel apparently with the main goal of boosting the position of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to measure the support of the Western countries for this regime. In practice, however, it prompted the United States to once again offer its unrestrained support for Israel under tremendous pressure of pro-Israel lobbies in Washington. The support offered by the Western states to Israel during the eight-day war on Gaza at a time that the Islamic resistance movement was only armed with limited number of missiles in the face of Israel’s advanced weapons and bombs, proved that the West is still going on with its double-standard policy toward this regime. The West’s support for Israel also clearly showed the demagoguery of these states and emptiness of their slogans in support of Palestine and the Middle East peace process. Of course, the war showed to Israel that the policies of its neighboring countries and the general situation in the region have somehow changed compared to the past. In other word, in addition to Iran's support, Hamas can now reckon on the support of some regional countries which have been changed by the sweeping wave of the Arab Spring, including Egypt. This issue will probably force Tel Aviv to review its strategies. The proximity between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s viewpoints and the cause of Palestine, as well as the support of the public opinion in Egypt and Lebanon for this cause will be certainly an important hallmark in future course of regional developments. By waging the eight-day war on Gaza, the Israeli government also aimed to weaken the Palestinian resistance front and Hamas resistance movement. However, by accepting the cease-fire, it failed to achieve its goals. The failure not only caused the Israeli government to lose popularity with radical religious figures in Israel, but also increased the popularity of Hamas among the Palestinians and other regional nations.

2. The request for upgrading Palestine’s UN status to non-member observer state: The head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, put forth a request for upgrading the status of Palestine at the United Nations from “observer entity” to “non-member observer state.” The request was met with serious opposition from the United States and some of its Western allies including Canada as well as Israel. A number of European countries abstained from voting. Since permanent members of the United Nations Security Council could not use their veto right on the floor of the General Assembly, Palestine managed to have its status upgraded which was another failure for Israel and its Western allies. On the other hand, however, the development proved that the United States and the European governments are still sticking to their double-standard policy and do not seriously believe in the establishment of two independent states in Palestine. They are afraid that after the upgrade, Palestine will be able as a state to prosecute the Israeli regime’s crimes and acts of aggression at international courts and organizations. As a result of such a measure, it would be more difficult for the Western countries to continue supporting Israel in view of the new trends in global public opinion. For this reason, some European countries such as Britain and France had made their support for the upgrade of Palestine’s UN status conditional on the Palestinian Authority’s pledge not to pursue Israel’s crimes at international courts. Although it was clear that the Palestine upgrade vote would succeed even without cooperation of the European countries and with the sole support of Non-Aligned Movement and other freedom-seeking nations, the aforesaid issue, per se, shows that in spite of their public opposition to construction of illegal settlements by Israel on the occupied Palestinian lands, the European countries actually support that development.

3. Cancellation of the nuclear disarmament conference in the Middle East: As said before, cancellation of this conference by the United States proved that Washington is still bent on going on with its prejudiced policies by further supporting Israel in the Middle East region. As a result, despite Israel’s aggressions against almost all neighboring countries including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and even Sudan in addition to Turkey’s nationals, the US government is bent on supporting Israel as the sole nuclear power in the Middle East. As a result, Washington easily forgets its claim to supporting justice and nuclear disarmament due to is support for Tel Aviv. Perhaps, one can say that recent positions taken by the United States in support of the Israeli regime are coup de grace to the four-year efforts made by the US President Barack Obama to depict a law-abiding image of the United States which advocates the human rights and peace (and seeks to dismantle and annihilate all nuclear weapons) to the world. It also appears that Israel is causing its American and Western friends to incur heavy costs through its unwise measures because on the one side, its measures have led to deterioration of Israel’s isolation while, on the other side, they are revealing the false nature of humanitarian claims of countries supporting Tel Aviv. To answer the question as to what extent these countries will be ready to pay the price for their alliance with this regime, analysts should wait and see what future turn will regional developments take.